“I found it in Turkey,” he said evenly, as if their very lives hadn’t been in danger just minutes ago. “It was nearly fifty years old. I’ll never be able to replace it.” He shook his head.

“I—I’m sorry.”

Alec finally looked down at her. His face was half in shadows in the darkened cabin, but there was only heart-stopping tenderness there. Alec skimmed a hand over her hair, barely touched her curls—as if he feared she would shatter. It was nearly impossible to reconcile this man with the one on the dock, but they were both Alec. And Lottie wanted all of him—to know every facet, every mask he wore, every emotion he tried so desperately to hide from the world. And from her.

“It wasn’t your fault. I never should have brought you here. Not to this house. Not to Venice. I knew the danger, and I did it anyway,” he murmured the last words, as if he was speaking to himself, then turned away once again. “She caught me by surprise, you know,” he added. “It meant nothing.”

It took Lottie a moment to realize he was speaking of the Frenchwoman. “I believe you,” she rasped. Her voice had gone hoarse from crying. “You don’t need to explain anything to me.”

Alec faced her then. His eyes now gleamed with something else. “I want to,” he insisted. “Regardless of what your uncle once told you, the things I do are never for pleasure. They serve another purpose entirely.”

“But how can you stand it? Watching you with her, I thought—”

“It isn’t always like that,” Alec interrupted, then he paused. “In my experience it is far easier to be with someone I don’t care for than to be with someone I do.”

Lottie had the feeling they were now treading on quicksand. She hesitated. “How do you know?”

Alec turned away again. A sliver of moonlight touched his cheek, making his olive skin look almost porcelain. “Because. I kissed someone. Only once. And that told me everything I needed to know.”

The admission would have suffused her with joy, if not for the grim certainty in his voice. He thought such feelings were a hindrance.

She kept her words brief, so her voice wouldn’t crack. “I see.”

He glanced at her and raised a dark brow. “Do you?”

Lottie thought of her pathetic conditions, how even the lightest of his touches set off a storm within her. “Yes.” She moved to bury her head against his chest once again, but he gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to meet his gaze.

“Then you see that I cannot put you at risk again. I cannot.” He abruptly released her. “Tonight you saw what I am capable of,” he began again. “And there are things I have done that can never be forgotten. That is why you must go.”